Sold

Sold (1991) is Zana Muhsen's first-person account, written with ghostwriter Andrew Crofts, of being taken from her home in Birmingham, England, to rural Yemen at the age of fifteen and forced into marriage, alongside her younger sister Nadia, then thirteen. What their father had presented as a family holiday became years of confinement in an isolated village, with no running water, physical abuse, and childbirth attended only by local women.

After eight years, Zana managed to escape and return to Britain; Nadia did not, and remained in Yemen. The book became an international bestseller, sold millions of copies across Europe, and was dramatised by BBC Radio 4. Muhsen later wrote a follow-up, A Promise to Nadia (2001), about her continuing efforts on her sister's behalf.

The sisters' own accounts of these events have since diverged: Nadia has said in later interviews that she did not want to leave Yemen. Readers should be aware the book presents one sister's perspective on events the two sisters themselves have since described differently.